It’s been ten years since I had cancer which makes it time to celebrate that milestone of Ten Years Cancer Free!
Following a biopsy on my shin which revealed that the lump was spindle cell sarcoma, my GP in Nanaimo told me there would probably be some treatment and surgery. That didn’t sound too bad.
Then Sarah and I went to meet the orthopaedic sursgeon at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver.
Ravenous
Because the surgeon bears an impish grin
and pulls himself closer to me on a wheel-less
stool – he looks me straight in the eye
long enough to know he sees me –
and because he wears a mauve shirt with
co-ordinating tie, directs my gaze to a wall
calendar and says,
This will all be over in five months,
I accept his prescription:
five weeks of radiation,
six weeks of rest,
surgery in November.
We leave the office, walk slowly to the car.
Let’s just go home, Sarah says.
Because our home is across the Salish Sea,
we drive, silent, to the ferry. In the line-up,
Sarah goes for take-out fish and chips.
When they arrive, I eat them. Ravenous.
Five weeks of radiation on my left shin sounded ominous but it all worked out. I stayed at the Cancer Society Lodge near Royal Jubilee Hospital and the BC Cancer Society in Victoria where I had the treatments. The radiation technologists were friendly and efficient. Radiation isn’t painful; I just had a red burn on my left leg. That didn’t stop me from exploring Victoria where I’d walk in a different direction every day.
Twenty-Five Days
Every day after breakfast,
not always the same time,
I sign myself out at the front desk
of the lodge where out-of-town
cancer patients stay. Walk
down the steps, turn the corner
onto Richmond –
always
on the same side so I can
pause at the house with Buddha
in the garden – then pass the bus stop
where no one makes eye contact.
Inside the clinic, after the café and
the gift shop, I head downstairs.
A man stops when I come near, says
it’s bad luck to pass on the stairs,
presses his body against the wall and,
gives me a nod. I know where I’m
going. Through the waiting area,
peach and lime-covered chairs,
down the hall of donated paintings.
I put my white card in the tray
that says Fir. Sometimes I don’t
wait at all. When they’re ready
for me, I take off my shoes and
socks, roll up my left pant leg.
Hannah says, “Good morning
sunshine.” I shimmy into position
on the table. “Two to the right”
an RT says as they line up the
machine, place a pink bolus
on my shin. Hannah covers me
with a warm blanket. I don’t
remember the name
of the 6-million-dollar machine
even though I’ve stared up at it
twenty-five times. I close my eyes,
see my dead mum and dad doing what
they can to say everything will be all right.
My mother had died in 1995 and my father in 2014, a year before the radiation treatments. His wife Jean told me that if he had found out I had cancer, it would have killed him. Both my parents died of cancer affecting the lungs. Mine was different and didn’t end my life.
Staying at the Cancer Society Lodge was a cozy home base during the week when I was in Victoria. On the weekends, I’d return home to Nanaimo via Wheels for Wellness, vans driven by volunteers.
This next poem begins with an epigraph:
My own life hovers, newly emerged,
alert as to who I will become upon leaving this place.
Melissa Pritchard
At the Lodge
At the table in the lodge dining room, Brenda says
she wants to have a party on Thursday as we all
leave Friday for a weekend home. She’s found
some old sheet music by the piano, hopes to get
the karaoke machine working.
Brenda is close to the end of treatment. Her meal
choices: vegetables with béchamel sauce, sometimes
a smoothie, and on the way home in the Wheels for
Wellness van, her favourite: a Tim Horton’s frappuccino.
I’m new to the place and the diagnosis, curious
about Brenda’s need to celebrate and about the way
the women choose to talk about their prognosis.
Every hair of her wig in place, every rhinestone
perfect on her jewelry, Fay tells us what’s she’s afraid of.
Hilary says: Let’s not go there.
There’s someone new in the corner – a man
in a freshly ironed shirt, tray full of dinner,
in front of him. His neck gags when he lifts the fork.
Sometimes, he leaves the table to return and try again,
head bowed.
One of us goes for the nurse who crouches down
beside the man’s chair, removes the tray, says, it’s all right
as the man murmurs: I didn’t want to waste the food.
Is it better to toss the wigs and rhinestones?
Who will continue to be upon leaving this place?
I wonder how the other patients are doing now? Are they continuing to be, that is, to live?
Dr. Paul Clarkson, who told me “this will all be over in five months” wasn’t quite accurate. There was still surgery scheduled for December. (The radiation treatments took place in August – September.) Then the surgery was cancelled when I was all prepped at Vancouver General, the doctors having signed my left leg including the plastic surgeon who would be doing the skin graft.
When I went back in January 2016, I had the same orthopaedic surgeon as he’s a specialist when it comes to spindle cell sarcoma; the anesthesiologist and plastic surgeon had changed. The cancerous lump and margins were removed and I recovered for ten days or so at VGH. A hospital is a noisy place to try and recover but I did get the best care and visits from my son Andy which was the best gift of all.
Back at home, Sarah wore about seven hats as she became doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, driver, head cook and bottle washer. Imagine taking on the challenge of changing the dressing on a skin graft, a very delicate procedure. She did it! Some of the driving involved ten trips by BC Ferry to Dr. Mark Hill at Vancouver General for check-ups on the skin graft. Those were the days of “thinking pink” as that was the result that indicated healing.
Something we weren’t told in advance was that I couldn’t walk on my left leg for a couple of months due to the skin graft. That was indeed a challenge but I did get walking again with the help of a physiotherapist, graduating from crutches and wheelchair to walker and then cane.
Recently I was in Victoria in the Oak Bay area which was one of my haunts ten years ago as it’s close to the BC Cancer Agency and the Cancer Society Lodge. Driving through the neighbourhood, I saw the various coffee shops I visited and restaurants where I had lunch.
I had a desire to go and see if Hannah still worked as a radiation technician and if she was still knitting.